Will Nike Earnings Take the Stock to All-Time Highs?

Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) is set to report its fiscal-year and fourth-quarter results on Thursday after the markets close. For the quarter, the consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters call for earnings per share (EPS) of $0.83 and $7.69 billion in revenue. In the same period of the previous year, Nike posted EPS of $0.78 and revenue of $7.42 billion.

For the 2015 fiscal year, the consensus estimates expect $3.55 in EPS on $30.51 billion in revenue.

As Nike continues to grow through merchandising and marketing partnerships, it has essentially made itself a household name.

Just two weeks ago the NBA and Nike announced an eight-year global merchandising and marketing partnership. Effectively, this will make Nike the official on-court apparel provider beginning with the 2017-18 season.

What separates this deal from others in the past is that it will make Nike the first apparel partner to have its logo appear on all on-court uniforms. The deal is reported to be worth over $1 billion.

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Basically Nike will replace Adidas as apparel provider to the NBA in two years. At that point, the company not only will have its logo on the uniforms but it will have the global rights to design and manufacture authentic Swingman jerseys, as well as warm-ups and shooting shirts. Both Nike and the NBA do have a history together, as Nike has been a global marketing partner of the NBA since 1992.

This is not the first major move by Nike into professional uniforms. Only two years ago, the NFL inked a deal with Nike, where the company would take over the uniform rights at the start of the 2012 season.

A few analysts that made calls on Nike ahead of its earnings:

• Canaccord Genuity reiterated a Hold rating with a $96 price target.
• Sterne Agee CRT reiterated a Neutral rating.
• DA Davidson reiterated a Neutral rating with a $110 price target.
• Stifel had a Buy rating and increased its price target to $118 from $100.
• Jefferies reiterated a Buy rating with a $120 price target.

Just on Monday, shares hit a new all-time high. On the year so far, the stock is up about 12%, as well as up over 42% in the past 52 weeks.

Shares of Nike were down 1.0% at $106.17 on Wednesday afternoon. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $110.00 and a 52-week trading range of $75.03 to $107.45.

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